Development

With MOSS 2007 or SharePoint Server 2010 you can use the PoraltSiteMapProvider of the Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.dll assembly to retrieve cached listitems.

<span style="color:#606060" id=lnum1>   1:</span> PortalSiteMapProvider ps = PortalSiteMapProvider.WebSiteMapProvider;<span style="color:#606060" id=lnum2>   2:</span> var pNode = ps.FindSiteMapNode(web.ServerRelativeUrl) as PortalWebSiteMapNode;<span style="color:#606060" id=lnum3>   3:</span> var query = new SPQuery<span style="color:#606060" id=lnum4>   4:</span>                {<span style="color:#606060" id=lnum5>   5:</span>                   Query = "<Where><Neq><FieldRef Name='ID' /><Value Type='Counter'>0</Value></Neq></Where>"<span style="color:#606060" id=lnum6>   6:</span>                };<span style="color:#606060" id=lnum7>   7:</span> SiteMapNodeCollection quoteItems = ps.GetCachedListItemsByQuery(pNode, "Top Seiten", query, web);

In my case, I didn’t need any special where clause. I wanted to retrieve all items, so I left the Query property empty. And because I needed only three columns, I specified the ViewFields property of the SPQuery object.

Like many other blogs running SharePoint, my blog uses the EBE to add more functionality to the default SharePoint blog.

And since I am one of the developers of the EBE 3.0, I’m glad that we announce the release of the next release. Version 3 brings along many new features and improvements of already implemented features.

New Features
*Ability to theme wiki pages
*Ability to export post to PDF
*Localization (French, Spanish)
*Technorati Links from post categories
*Ability to bookmark post with Twitter
*Centralized Theming – Ability to create a theme library at the root and allow sub blog sites to use the common theme library.
*The ability to add an XML feed control
*Logging of pingbacks and trackback errors to SharePoint Logs directory
*Support of feature stapling
*Preliminary SharePoint 2010 Beta 3 compatible (with web.config edits)
*EBE caching and performance validation
*Performance increases for page loads less than <3 sec
Note: Some features are specific to certain themes

Did you know you can fetch an item by its UniqueId even if it is in the recycle bin?

You can even update its data while it is already recycled. I wonder if there is a scenario, where you would want to modify an already recycled ListItem…

The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Software Development Kit (SDK) contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, samples, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on SharePoint 2010 products and technologies.

You can grab it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=f0c9daf3-4c54-45ed-9bde-7b4d83a8f26f

The download contains the SDK for SPF and SPS. No need to download two separate files anymore.

The SharePoint Developer Center can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/default.aspx

A Webpart receives a filter value through the IWebPartField interface. The example over at MSDN was simple and clean. So I adopted the code to my Webpart.

A common scenario would be to create controls based on the received filter value. E.g. query a list for the passed filter value, and display the item from the query. ASP.NET Lifecycle

Problem

From the ASP.NET Lifecycle we know how to deal with controls. Create them in CreateChildControls, assign values in OnPreRender and let them being rendered in RenderContents. Now we have a problem. The passed value in our Webpart is not available at any place, where we can still add controls to the page. If we try to do in RenderContens, they are not shown. It’s too late.

Developing a Windows Service is a common task. Creating an EventLog for this service also is a common practice. The EventLog can be created with a ServiceInstaller (a class which inherits from System.Configuration.Install.Installer).

This is how an Eventlog can be added during the installation with a custom Installer class:

public Installer()
   {
      Installers.Add(new EventLogInstaller
               {
                  Source = "EventLogSource",
                  Log = "EventLogName"
               });

The EventLogInstaller class does not allow to set the overwrite mode.

I’ve just seen that the RC is available via MSDN.

Silverlight 4 is not supported in the RC it says in the notes. Have to try SharePoint Development against the Beta 2…

I’ve fixed a bug with my [Custom Field – Upload Files and Images][1].

[1]: “Custom Field – Upload Files and Images”

Jacob Reimers has written an C# API for accessing Google Analytics data.

When I saw his post, I thought it would be great to fetch the latest data every day, and write it to a SharePoint list. Then you can use the data, without querying Google for every request.

You could then use the ChartPart for SharePoint to generate nice charts from your Google Analytics data.

Fabian hat es auf seinem Blog schon geschrieben. Deshalb werde ich auch über unser Projekt bloggen.

Zusammen schreiben wir ein Buch zum Thema Anwendungsentwicklung mit SharePoint 2010. Das Buch richtet sich an Entwickler, Anwender und Administratoren und hat das Ziel, Wege aufzuzeigen, mit denen Unternehmenslösungen mit SharePoint 2010 realisiert werden können.

It took me some time to find the solution to a problem, where a WPF application could not connect to a local SharePoint farm via SPFarm.Local. It always returned null.

Windows 7 was not the problem. I copied my application to a Windows Server 2008 VM to test.

In case somebody has the same problem, here is the solution:

Make sure you have set the Platform to “Any CPU” and not x86 if you are using x64 assemblies.

Roger Lamb has posted an article about SharePoint objects, which must not be disposed. He also wrote about changes to SP 2010 regarding disposing objects.

SPContext.Current.Site
SPContext.Current.Web
SPContext.Site
SPContext.Web
SPControl.GetContextWeb(..)
SPControl.GetContextSite(..)
SPFeatureReceiverProperties.Feature.Parent
SPItemEventProperties.ListItem.Web
SPList.BreakRoleInheritance()
- Do not call list.ParentWeb.Dispose()
SPListEventProperties.Web
SPListEventProperties.List.Web
SPSite.RootWeb
- Problems may occur when SPContext.Web has equality to the SPContext.Web.. make sure you dispose of SPSite and it will cleanup sub webs automatically
SPSite.LockIssue
SPSite.Owner
SPSite.SecondaryContact
SPWeb.ParentWeb
SPWebEventProperties.Web

More on his blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/rogerla/archive/2009/11/30/sharepoint-2007-2010-do-not-dispose-guidance-spdisposecheck.aspx

Tim Heuer has written 7 posts about Silverlight development. So if you haven’t started with Silverlight but plan to, have a look at his post series.

Part 1: Really getting started – the tools you need and getting your first Hello World
Part 2: Defining UI Layout – understanding layout and using Blend to help
Part 3: Accessing data – how to get data from where
Part 4: Binding the data – once you get the data, how can you use it?
Part 5: Integrating additional controls – using controls that aren’t a part of the core
Part 6: Polishing the UI with styles and templates
Part 7: Taking the application out-of-browser

Today I’ve created a CodePlex project for some of my SharePoint developments. Interesting to see what I’ve done so far 🙂

The link is http://renehezser.codeplex.com/

Webparts

[Access Fileserver Data via SharePoint][3]
[Display all my alerts][4]
[Webpart to show Sitecollections/Subwebs][5]
[TagCloud Webpart][6]
[Display a single ListItem][7]

Custom Fields

[Upload Files and Images][8]

Features

[.NET 3.5 and Silverlight][9]

Control Adapter

[Navigation for Wikis][10]

Event Handler

[Picture Library and Exif data][11]
[EventHandler which sends an Email for new/changed items][12]

Tools

Writing a Windows Service is very easy. Deploying it with a Setup is an easy task as well.

But be careful what option you set for the failure behavior!

In my case I installed the service with “Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset”.

Do not use critical as ErrorControl value. It will force a reboot of the server, if the services fails to start.

Fortunately booting with “Last known good configuration” worked for me and I could uninstall the service…

Development

PortalSiteMapProvider.GetCachedListItemsByQuery

CKS:EBE 3.0-Enhanced Blog Edition 3.0

SPListItem.GetItemByUniqueId

SharePoint 2010 SDK

The IWebPartField Interface versus the ASP.NET Lifecycle

Modify Overwrite Policy for an EventLog created by an EventLogInstaller

Visual Studio 2010 RC

Update to “Upload Files and Images” field type

Google Analytics data in a SharePoint list

Anwendungsentwicklung mit SharePoint 2010

SPFarm.Local is null?

SPDispose or not to SPDispose

Getting started with Silverlight development

CodePlex project

Develop your own Windows Service